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Recent Articles

Opera Lively interviewed the great Italian baritone Ambrogio Maestri, in person at the Vienna State Opera, on June 30th, 2018, on the occasion of his role of Falstaff for the Austrian company. Speaking with the affable and convivial artist was a pleasure.

This interview is part of our Central Europe coverage trip in the summer of 2018, when we visited four countries, seven cities, and eight opera companies where we attended sixteen performances in as many days and interviewed twenty-one artists. We gathered this material in a portal with links to all articles, reviews, and interviews. Click [here] to consult the portal, or else, click on Read More or on the title of this article, to read Mr. Maestri's words.... read more

Opera Lively interviewed in person Dominique Meyer, the Intendant (general director) of the Vienna State Opera, the man who currently occupies the position once held by Richard Strauss, Gustav Mahler, Karl Böhm, and Herbert von Karajan. Speaking with the polite and soft-spoken administrator was a pleasure, and his interesting answers provide and inside view of the world-class operation of this magnificent company.

This interview is part of our Central Europe coverage trip in the summer of 2018, when we visited four countries, seven cities, and eight opera companies where we attended sixteen performances in as many days and interviewed twenty-one artists. We gathered this material in a portal with links to all articles, reviews, and interviews. Click [here] to consult the portal, or else, click on Read More or on the title of this article, to read Mr. Meyer's words.... read more

Luiz Gazzola (Almaviva)

Opera Lively interviewed the great Italian baritone Ambrogio Maestri, in person at the Vienna State Opera, on June 30th, 2018, on the occasion of his role of Falstaff for the Austrian company. Speaking with the affable and convivial artist was a pleasure.

This interview is part of our Central Europe coverage trip in the summer of 2018, when we visited four countries, seven cities, and eight opera companies where we attended sixteen performances in as many days and interviewed twenty-one artists. We gathered this material in a portal with links to all articles, reviews, and interviews. Click [here] to consult the portal, or else, click on Read More or on the title of this article, to read Mr. Maestri's words.
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Opera Lively interviewed in person Dominique Meyer, the Intendant (general director) of the Vienna State Opera, the man who currently occupies the position once held by Richard Strauss, Gustav Mahler, Karl Böhm, and Herbert von Karajan. Speaking with the polite and soft-spoken administrator was a pleasure, and his interesting answers provide and inside view of the world-class operation of this magnificent company.

This interview is part of our Central Europe coverage trip in the summer of 2018, when we visited four countries, seven cities, and eight opera companies where we attended sixteen performances in as many days and interviewed twenty-one artists. We gathered this material in a portal with links to all articles, reviews, and interviews. Click [here] to consult the portal, or else, click on Read More or on the title of this article, to read Mr. Meyer's words.
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Opera Lively had the pleasure of interviewing the great tenor Jonas Kaufmann, on the occasion of his magnificent interpretation of the title role of Parsifal in the new production of the opera by the Bayerische Staatsoper, which we attended live on July 1, 2018 in Munich. Given the multiple demands on the famous tenor's time, we kept it short, but his intelligence and erudition still shine through, in his answers to our eight questions.

This interview is part of our Central Europe coverage trip in the summer of 2018, when we visited four countries, seven cities, and eight opera companies where we attended sixteen performances in as many days and interviewed twenty-one artists. We gathered this material in a portal with links to all articles, reviews, and interviews. Click [here] to consult the portal, and on "read more" below for Mr. Kaufmann's words.
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This interview is part of our Central Europe coverage trip in the summer of 2018, when we visited four countries, seven cities, and eight opera companies where we attended sixteen performances in as many days and interviewed twenty artists. We gathered this material in a portal with links to all articles and interviews. Click [here] to consult the portal.

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Meeting in person the charming and intelligent French soprano Julie Fuchs was a pleasure. Even more impressive was attending her phenomenal rendition of the title role in Calixto Bieito's new production of L'incoronazione di Poppea for Opernhaus Zürich. As our readers can see by consulting our review [clicking (here)] (numerous production pictures are included), we granted to this gifted singer a score of A+++, which is above our usual maximum of A++, and issued this enthusiastic comment:

"I have her CD "Yes!" (highly recommended, by the way), and I've seen her on DVD and some video clips, and already enjoyed her voice very
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Opera Lively Press in conjunction with CreateSpace has published on April 3, 2018, the third book of our opera guides series, on Tchaikovsky's masterspiece Eugene Onegin.

It is difficult to appreciate in the 21st century how much of a novelty was Onegin, when it premiered in Moscow. Back in 1879, most of Russian and Slavic opera was devoted to political topics (A life for the Tsar, Boris Godunov, Khovanschina…), fairy tales (Ruslan and Ludmila, Rusalka, May Night…) or even biblical adaptations like Serov’s Judith. However, Onegin was centered on the life and passions of standard human beings.

Onegin is a Romantic opera. It is also full of melody. There are no formal experiments here. It was the perfect daughter of her times. Of course, with such a skillful instrumental music composer for the orchestra as Tchaikovsky, we can find many fine details in the orchestration, as well as some motif building. But the prominent role is never in the pit: it’s in the voices of the singers.

This Opera Lively guidebook will walk the reader through the opera’s libretto (with a new translation), musical structure (in terms that can be understood by all), circumstance of composition, trivia, and wil provide CD and DVD reviews, comments on live performances, and interviews with singers and a conductor. Enjoy!

Available now on Amazon.com (and various international Amazon sites for the Kindle e-book): click [here] for the paperback and [here] for the Kindle edition.
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We met the excellent bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni on the occasion of his March 22, 2018 recital of Italian and American art songs with the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, at the Kimmel Center. A review of this show and the program can be found by clicking [here]. We talked about his choice of songs and he gave us a brief update on how his career is progressing, after his first interview with us six years ago.
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After our spectacular interview with Maestro Riccardo Muti, we are now publishing the words of another giant of Italian music, Salvatore Sciarrino, the most important living Italian composer. Mr. Sciarrino is delightful and possesses great erudition. He speaks in a very literary manner, and likely would have produced even more sophisticated words, but since the interview was conducted in Italian, Mr. Sciarrino said he tried to "keep it simple" so that the translation would be easier. Well, it wasn't simple... His answers are deep and meaningful. We believe this is one of the best interviews we ever published on Opera Lively.
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Two Opera Lively journalists - James Wieber and Luiz Gazzola - are covering numerous operas and interviewing artists and administrators in several opera companies located in German-speaking areas of Central Europe (and one in Slovakia) this Summer 2018. Like we did for the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence and for a previous trip to Berlin in 2016, we are publishing a portal that centralizes the links to the various performance reviews, interviews, pictorial travel blogs, and brief hotel and restaurant recommendations, which will be helpful to our readers if they also travel to these areas in the future.
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Dear readers, prepare to get more closely acquainted with perhaps the most important artist ever interviewed by Opera Lively, the great Riccardo Muti, arguably the best opera conductor in the world. It is fitting that Maestro Muti is our 250th interviewee, given that such a round number seems to beg for a very special one. While we had some epic interviews with many of the leading singers, composers, conductors, administrators, and stage directors in the business (consult the widget on the top left corner of our Home page and click on Exclusive Interviews for the full list), it is hard to top Maestro Muti's passion, erudition, depth of knowledge, and wealth of information that he is willing to share with us, from his memories of his prestigious career that spans more than half a century. His words are really fascinating and informative. If there is an interview that truly deserves the "must read" label, this is the one.
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Opera Lively has attended and reviewed an extraordinary performance of Rigoletto at Opera Carolina in Charlotte, NC, USA. It's a must-see show; there are two more opportunities to see it on February 15 and 17, 2018; find a link to tickets on the press release page by clicking [here]. Read our review of the opening night [here], which includes many production pictures. Prior to the show we interviewed the three principal singers in the title role and the roles of Gilda and the Duke [read them (here)]. Upon attending the show in person, we were pleasantly surprised with the singer who did Maddalena, the charming and beautiful Italian mezzo-soprano Leyla Martinucci, who sang very well her part, including, being very audible during the famous quartet, which is not always the case in other renditions of this opera we've heard in person or in recordings. After the show when we went to meet the artists, we asked Leyla to also grant us an interview. She kindly accepted, resulting in this piece below. Enjoy!
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The contemporary Chamber Opera Family Secrets: Kith and Kin will have its staged world premiere in Raleigh, NC, on February 15-16, 2018 at 7:30 PM, in a production by North Carolina Opera. This is a very interesting show. Keep reading for more information.
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[First of all, we have not included the diacritic marks in the title of this article because they cause problems with the URL links in our software; the correct spelling of the artist's name is Željko Lučić]

Opera Lively met the excellent baritone Željko Lučić in his dressing room backstage at the Metropolitan Opera House on January 23, 2018 for a pleasant chat about Tosca, which we later continued by email, resulting in this interesting dialogue-like interview you are about to read. The singer had just delivered another fabulous performance of the role of Scarpia, in the gorgeous Sir David McVicar new production that we attended in person and reviewed recently (read our review by clicking [here]), which was, four days later, shown worldwide on Met Live in HD, to universal acclaim.
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In 2015 Opera Lively extensively interviewed the great tenor Roberto Alagna, in one of our most interesting pieces to date. That must-read article can be consulted by clicking [here]. On January 25, 2018, we had the pleasure of meeting the singer again, backstage at the Met in his dressing room, after his extraordinary performances of Turiddu in Cavalleria Rusticana, and Canio in Pagliacci. Our review of the show can be read [here], with many production pictures.

Roberto was extremely kind to Opera Lively, agreeing with a mini-interview of about ten questions and some follow-up dialogue, in spite of the fatigue of two strenuous roles back-to-back, and a very long line of fans who were eager to get an autograph and a selfie with the artist. We voluntarily kept the interview short because it was past midnight, but Roberto gave us no sign that he wanted to rush it through, and most likely would have answered more questions if we had asked them.
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Opera Lively met the adorable and intelligent soprano Aleksandra Kurzak at the Press Lounge of the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City for a lovely interview, on the occasion of her performance as Nedda in Pagliacci. Aleksandra is outspoken and a straight shooter, unafraid of courageously spelling out her ideas. This Poland-born singer is notable for being fast-thinking and for expressing herself very well in English, a language that is foreign to her. She is very self-confident and charming, and one can understand why her husband Roberto Alagna spoke so highly of her during his extraordinary interview with us (read it by clicking [here]). Also see our review of Aleksandra's Pagliacci by clicking [here]. Read Aleksandra's interesting answers to Opera Lively's questions, below. You'll see how she comes across as very genuine.
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As usual, we are starting our coverage of our beloved partner company Opera Carolina's winter opera, which this season will be Verdi's spectacular Rigoletto on February 11, 15, and 17, 2018. See the Press Release by clicking [here], where you will find links to tickets and other information about the show.

Opera Lively will attend and review the show. We interviewed the artists who are singing the three leading roles.
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Our partner company Greensboro Opera has been putting together some very compelling shows ever since the company's rebirth under the leadership of Artistic Director David Holley. This time, the company will be presenting Rossini's The Barber of Seville with a very good cast. We at Opera Lively know some of the singers already from other productions and can vouch for their quality, and the ones until unknown to us look great when we look at their artistic biographies and video clips. It's always great to see a well-sung production of this beloved opera, so, dear readers, don't miss it! There will be two performances: on January 12 at 7:30 PM, and January 14 at 2 PM, at the UNCG Auditorium, 408 Tate Street, in Greensboro, North Carolina. Click [here] for tickets, and [here] to know more about the cast. Opera Lively is interviewing the singers; see below. THE REVIEW OF THE SHOW IS NOW IN. CLICK [HERE]
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This interview with the great French singer Sandrine Piau is being published very late for no fault of the artist, and we apologize for it. But even if it is no longer timely, it is still very interesting given Ms. Piau's intelligence and profound insights regarding the character Despina in Così fan tutte, which in the summer of 2016 she was singing for the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence. This piece is therefore to be situated in our extensive coverage of that edition of the festival. We made a portal where we listed links to all the articles we published about Aix, and our readers can consult the other numerous interviews and reviews by clicking [here].
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This is our last piece that was still incomplete, for our extensive coverage of the 2016 Festival d'Aix-en-Provence. You can consult the numerous other interviews, reviews, and pictorial blogs in our coverage portal, by clicking [here]. This is not an Opera Lively exclusive interview, but rather a public Q&A session that we attended and recorded. The singer was so thorough in describing her experiences, that it became unnecessary to interview her in person, since she covered everything that we might have wanted to ask her. She particularly addressed in a very interesting way, how the stage director shaped the festival's production of Handel's oratorio Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno, staged like an opera. Sabine sang - and very well - the main female role.
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In the Summer of 2016 Opera Lively sent to Berlin two envoys, journalist James Weber and chief editor Luiz Gazzola, to interview artists and review operas presented by the Berlin Staatsoper and the Komische Oper Berlin, and to review operas by the Deutsche Oper Berlin. To facilitate navigation between the various reviews and interviews, we created this coverage portal with links to each piece.